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So if the ranger monk splash is overpowered... what do you do about it?

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I truely do not know how to do this without making a lot of people really mad...

1. Nothing... this makes the people saying the build is overpowered upset.

2. More mob inflation seems unfun to me and a way to hurt anyone without the optimum build.

3. Reducing Monk AC transfer. For example, make wisdom bonus only available when using monk weapons. Or make monk AC only useable when using monk weapons (or both). Another posted to cap wisdom bonus at the number of monk levels. Things like that.

While these take care not to hurt pure monks, anyone who has a splash build will be very upset by this.

4. Reducing tempest bonus. Many people have said this is overpowered. I don't know. (Without the monk splash would it be?) Doing this would affect pure builds too and upset those with the builds.

1 = not worth the headache it will cause from player complaints. Especially if the other three are incorporated.
1a = good idea
2 = already done so my opinion doesn't matter, but it's a decent idea
3 = very good idea

The only thing that makes Ranger/ Monks arguably overpowered is that they can raise 2 stats for AC without having to worry about caps. With the ease of gaining stat points in DDO compared to D&D, it's more noticeable.

I think that the Armor Mastery enhancements should take a page from the Toughness book and let everyone take a few levels very cheaply. If you make it so that even non-dwarven characters without Fighter levels can expect to get the full benefit of starting at 14 dex, it would not seem so overpowered.

I think the next step would be to remove the first step of the centered AC bonus and start be giving you +1 at level 5, just like in PnP. If you think that that hurts monks too much, add additional AC bonuses as enhancements at higher levels like the Paladin enhancements.

Finally, give the mobs scaling attack bonuses. They don't purposely inturrupt their attack to maximize their high AB attacks and by giving them penalties to later attacks, you make it so that the barbarian with 30 AC gets hit less often than the 8 AC Barbarian. This gives AC some meaning even if you can't hit the current "magic number."

Edit: I think that eventually, we will need some sort of passive DR for shields, but that isn't completely on topic here. Still, AC really does need a full review.

Had they actually done it the right way none of this would even be a problem.

If you dont know what im talking about here it is.

If you decide to multi-class the levels of your classes can not be more than 1lvl apart. I.E. A 11thlvl wizard/rogue would have to have 6lvls wizzy and 5lvls rogue(or vice-a-versa)to take no penalties.

The penalty for for being more than 1lvl "off" is 20% of your xp.

Every race has a favored class. So if you wizard rogue was a halfling you could do 9 wizzy and 2 rogue and not suffer any penalty because a halflings favored class is rogue and not subject to the penalties. However, if you add anyother class it must be within 1 lvl of the wizard lvls because for the purpose of multi-classing its almost like the rogue levels dont exist.

Edit: fixed xp penalty on multi-classing

Last edited by Jendrak; 02-07-2009 at 11:43 AM.

To err is human, to forgive is divine. Neither of which is Marine Corps policy

Had they actually done it the right way none of this would even be a problem.

If you dont know what im talking about here it is.

If you decide to multi-class the levels of your classes can not be more than 1lvl apart. I.E. A 11thlvl wizard/rogue would have to have 6lvls wizzy and 5lvls rogue(or vice-a-versa)to take no penalties.

The penalty for for being more than 1lvl "off" is 10% of your xp per lvl difference past 1. I.E. 2=10%, 3=20%, etc...

Every race has a favored class. So if you wizard rogue was a halfling you could do 9 wizzy and 2 rogue and not suffer any penalty because a halflings favored class is rogue and not subject to the penalties. However, if you add anyother class it must be within 1 lvl of the wizard lvls because for the purpose of multi-classing its almost like the rogue levels dont exist.

In a game with functionally infinite XP gain, this is silly and pointless.

What they should do is similar to what they did with Sorc's doubling of SP items. They gain a percentage of their Wisdom bonus to AC based on what percentage of Monk they are.

The only thing that makes Ranger/ Monks arguably overpowered is that they can raise 2 stats for AC without having to worry about caps. With the ease of gaining stat points in DDO compared to D&D, it's more noticeable.

I think that the Armor Mastery enhancements should take a page from the Toughness book and let everyone take a few levels very cheaply. If you make it so that even non-dwarven characters without Fighter levels can expect to get the full benefit of starting at 14 dex, it would not seem so overpowered.

I think the next step would be to remove the first step of the centered AC bonus and start be giving you +1 at level 5, just like in PnP. If you think that that hurts monks too much, add additional AC bonuses as enhancements at higher levels like the Paladin enhancements.

Finally, give the mobs scaling attack bonuses. They don't purposely inturrupt their attack to maximize their high AB attacks and by giving them penalties to later attacks, you make it so that the barbarian with 30 AC gets hit less often than the 8 AC Barbarian. This gives AC some meaning even if you can't hit the current "magic number."

Edit: I think that eventually, we will need some sort of passive DR for shields, but that isn't completely on topic here. Still, AC really does need a full review.

I agree on the boosted stats section. But if this game wasnt a Monty Hall wet dream this wouldnt be anywhere near as bad.

As for the ac section it is done exactly like in PnP and doesnt need to be "fixed". Heres the text/link from/to the SRD:http://www.d20srd.org/srd/classes/monk.htm[
AC Bonus (Ex)
When unarmored and unencumbered, the monk adds her Wisdom bonus (if any) to her AC. In addition, a monk gains a +1 bonus to AC at 5th level. This bonus increases by 1 for every five monk levels thereafter (+2 at 10th, +3 at 15th, and +4 at 20th level).

These bonuses to AC apply even against touch attacks or when the monk is flat-footed. She loses these bonuses when she is immobilized or helpless, when she wears any armor, when she carries a shield, or when she carries a medium or heavy load.

The core of the system was always horribly broken. In any of my games, I flat out ignore mutliclassing penalties because they lower the fun value my players have.

The loss of abilities was just a quick suggestion. Theres obviousley better solutions thats just what came to mind in the 5 seconds i took to reply.

As for the core system being broken. Thats your opinion. However, with the every build has to be ranger/monk/rogue attitude thats killing this game. You can deny that something must be fixed. And if its not the way multiclassing is done then we are only patching the problem until the next Uber-I-can-do-it-all-and-everyone-else-is-usless build comes along and we are gonna be right back where we started

To err is human, to forgive is divine. Neither of which is Marine Corps policy

I'd imagine them putting in some nice light armor/shields with some nice ac bonuses(like a +5 dragontouched with +2/3/4 dodge built in) or some shield with a much higher bonus to try to equalize the ac bonus from monk wisdom.

As for the core system being broken. Thats your opinion. However, with the every build has to be ranger/monk/rogue attitude thats killing this game. You can deny that something must be fixed. And if its not the way multiclassing is done then we are only patching the problem until the next Uber-I-can-do-it-all-and-everyone-else-is-usless build comes along and we are gonna be right back where we started

Not every build has to be Ranger/Monk/Rogue. There's Cleric/Monk, Paladin/Monk, Rogue/Monk...

Oh, right, proving a point here.

Forcing any sort of artificial loss due to multiclassing is deliberately against what the system intends. Is the Monk Wisdom bonus to AC overpowering? For certain subsets of builds, absolutely.

What an intelligent Developer should do is limit the amount of Wisdom that can be granted to your AC based on a ratio of Monk:Total Level. So, at the moment, a level one Monk splash would receive 1/16th of his Wisdom score to AC (rounded up, for fairness). In other words, 1 AC, unless he somehow has a +17 Wisdom bonus (that's a 44 Wisdom, by the way).

Will it anger lots of those who did the Monk splash long before this change was introduced? Yes. Which is also why a respec mechanism needs to be in place before such a radical change.

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